C'est La Vie

Last night, I was reminded of the shared pain and humiliation that once bound us together. The connection has stayed as we waited for the shame and anger to melt away into a neutered past that we can eventually learn to live with but never understand. Occasionally, gently, and mockingly brought up as a tribute to the vanity and foolishness of our youth, it is a ghostly spectre whose absence and presence are equally lamentable in more ways than one. Of course, I speak for myself.

*

It’s harmless as it is hopeless to have this kind of knowledge. I only think it’s fair to be informed. I rather it came from me to you, than anyone else.

*

But you must know, that I am Living Constant Proof, how much you were held in regard. The same way I take comfort in and draw strength from your confession so many years ago, that you didn't think I was deluding myself.

*

It was someone else who hoodwinked us. And we are the better for it.

oh 塞纳河的水是心的眼泪
流过了漂泊的人生风景
愿我们各自都有美好的一生
美好的憧憬爱在遗憾里更清晰

也许我会再遇见你
像恋人般重逢美丽

c'est la vie

The WTF Moment Of The Week II

I did a double take today. Was that Mr Dimples’ doppelganger standing before me in the most unlikely of places, in Chinatown Point, at 1.30pm in front of Mouth Restaurant?

I waved feebly and hesitantly as I passed the evil twin (who was staring vacuously and viciously at nothing) and he looked just as surprised by this crossing of paths, this coy collision of coincidences, before sunshine took over and he beamed, and I was stopped in my tracks. Yes, it was him, there can be no doubt.

Like the last time this happened, the chanced encounter had us talking incoherently. I remembered vaguely he said he just ended celebrating a colleague’s birthday at the restaurant before blurting out (and I do mean blurting out because it really came from nowhere – entirely contextless and had me lost as a result) that he will be going away for a week. This is the first time I am hearing this and I couldn’t quite follow because I was also going away for a week (which I have told him before) and I kept thinking he was referring to my trip and was somehow tripping over his words. It was a brief confusing moment before he explained that he was being sent overseas on a work assignment and it finally registered it wasn’t about me (it wasn’t, sigh!) but that he was telling he is not going to be in Singapore from next week onwards. I recovered my wits sufficiently to ask when he’ll be back. So yes, it’s confirmed we’ll both be in Singapore for that short while before it’s my turn to jet off and perhaps we can squeeze in a quickie. By then, we realized we have somehow wandered away from our respective social groups and there was an awkward pause before we muttered something about finding our friends and said our goodbyes rather too loudly.

I’m aghast at how I can’t stop myself from beaming after this. Just because I bump into Mr Dimples? This is lame. But I feel a lot happier than I have been for a long time.

I should be rejoicing that I’m meeting The Male Best Friend today. But there. Confessionally, it’s because of Mr Dimples.

Gosh, this cannot be!

你不在

It’s practically impossible not to have lusty images from 300 resurfacing in my head as I was watching Beowulf, and inevitably, ending up doing a mental comparison of the CGI manipulated maleness while at the same time, trying to make sense of this adaptation from the epic poetry that I have neither read nor heard of prior to this.

If we were talking about abs and pecs and veins, I would go for the representation in Beowulf. 300 was rather overwhelming and all too easy to discredit as the physiques were, most unconvincingly, muscularly and glisteningly buffed. Then again, Best Friend and I would pick Donnie Yen as the No 1 Alpha Male any day over Beowulf because we are Chinese.

(And I find it hard to believe Neil Gaimen is part of the Beowulf project after he worked on the stunning spectacle that was Mirrormask)

*

Read a little on Beowulf online and “reading” the old text reminds me of the days we had to study Chaucer and his wife from Bath.

*

I’m actually more thrilled by another “wolf.” Apparently, the Lone Wolf series is gonna have a respectable (according to initial review and feedback from testers) PC game (locally produced some more) based on the game books and it’s making international waves. Reading Lone Wolf series was my very first engagement with the fantasy realm in primary school that eventually led to Dragonlance, so this is definitely news worthy of note. I still have my Castle Death stashed somewhere!

*

It turns out I’m watching The Pillowman after all with The Male Best Friend (formerly known as Po and, in another realm not that long ago, as PyJamas – so as to totally eradicate the remotest possibility of his students tracing him from this blog which he fears). I hope he isn’t going to read this entry till we have actually watched it ‘cos it’s meant to be an early birthday surprise. He’s back in Singapore today and stay he will for 3 days more. It was a toss between Mr Dimples and The Male Best Friend as escort when I received the show invite, made all the harder as I haven’t given Mr Dimples anything for his birthday either. Eventually, The Male Best Friend won the mock tussle by virture of Being In Singapore (and that he had wanted to BUY tickets to the show together and that he would appreciate it MORE) and I would really prefer to spend an unhurried day leisurely with the other male friend who is going to be stationed in Singapore more permanently, and we have postponed that day to be after my HK trip.

你不在 当我最需要爱 你却不在
无尽等待像独白般难挨

你不在 高兴还是悲哀 你都不在
我受了伤在偷偷好起来
但你不在

When Her Personal Is My Political

Thanks to Justin who searched high and low (according to him) in the US states he visited and finally stumbled upon the only copy in a Barnes and Noble bookstore, I hold in my naturally fair and ungloved hands a book that’s not sold (or found in any libraries, for that matter) in Singapore - Rebels in White Gloves: Coming of Age with Hillary's Class--Wellesley '69.

This is, despite its modest claim of being otherwise (merely document-ary in nature) and an even more unassuming title, an intelligent and compelling text that puts into perspective the feminist movement from its precarious cusp to its most precious and current developments through tracing the lives of Hillary’s class. Well-written and researched, it re-ignited my interest in an area I have long abandoned, for I too, was once caught up in the flaming romance of feminism in younger days and become conspicuously (as opposed to contemplatively) contemptuous after getting a B- in academic feminist theory.

Obviously, the sample the book uses is elitist to begin with and deliberately so for good reasons. Through tracking the women in Hillary’s class, who also happened to be the first generation of women straddling between the traditional and modern image/concept of what it means to be female, the conflict seething within a woman in contemporary times is made all the more poignant through its overachievers (with their fair share of grievances), who have also amongst them, more “ordinary” personalities who feel they have somehow failed to live up to The Expectations (usually their own and stemming from choosing family over career). All whom just happened to be in a larger-than-life class because the valedictorian is Hillary and all of them were comparing themselves to her. And ironically, the reader ie yours truly, is comparing myself to all these women I have never met wondering (rather unhappily because I’m competitive too) what have I done so far that showed my predecessors (even if they’re white) I have made use of their fight then to my advantage now and how should I continue the crusade in my own way as a woman, and especially as a woman in Singapore, who automatically relinquishes all rights (according to the law here) to grant sexual favours once married since married women cannot be raped by husbands. But I digress.

Reading the text made me feel more “normal” in a brainy sorta way which differs from how I usually purchase normalcy via materialism ever since I graduated, and that can be rather pricey. This is one of the very rare occasions I picked a non-fiction over the thick classics (remember Vanity Fair and Middlemarch and Anna Karenina in my vow to read all unread classics) that have come to rule.

I think I’m more a theory snob than a literary one :)

Alone By Choice & Lonely By Nature

Tell me, that it isn't a terrible thing to be alone, simply because, you dun want anyone else's company except the one you can't have, that you can't bring yourself to ask for, any more.

Maybe I have finally grown a conscience and started treating others with dignity.

Maybe because I realise I can't fake it any longer.

Perhaps, I am as naive and stubborn as I always was.

But here I am, alone and lonely on a Friday, that I could have taken precautions to pre-empt easily. But which I didn't. And making quarter-hearted attempts to do something about it only now with an hour to go before I leave the office.

I dun want to fill the gap when it can't reach the root and I'm not gonna be the filler for your gap either.

I'm a big, big girl in a big, big world. It's not a big, big thing that you leave me.

But you know, I din count on missing you so much.

Addendum: Eventually, it was Best Friend to the rescue. Although she wouldn't know that till she starts reading this entry. Nothing beats a good meal and spending time together. Thank you for saving me :)